Sleep is one of the most important tools we have to support good health. And it’s free.
The bedroom is the place we go to recharge, unwind, and support deep rest.
The bedroom is a sacred space.
Look around with an unbiased eye and take note of what’s happening in your bedroom.
Is it cluttered? Are there pictures or knick-knacks that drain your energy?
Sleep is critical for our physical, mental and emotional health. It is our time to unplug, recharge, detox, and quite literally, rest. This supports a healthy immune system and a healthy nervous system.
Without quality sleep, we experience greater emotional stress, susceptibility to illness (lowered immune response), premature aging
, and anxiety.
Here are 7 tips on enhancing your beauty and your health through sleep.
1. Remove the cell phone from your room. If you’re using it as an alarm clock, do yourself a favor and purchase a real one. Cell phones are always sending out and receiving a signal and this is highly disruptive to sleep.
2. Choose an alarm clock with red or orange light, not blue or green. Or go old school. The spectrum of red or orange light is much more soothing to our bodies. If you want to drop a few bucks on a super zen battery operated chime clock, check these out.
3. Sleep in the dark. Our bodies are programmed to sleep in the dark and wake with the light. Have you ever gone camping? Once the sun goes down, sleeping happens much sooner.
Buy black out curtains or simply hang extra fabric to seal out the light. Studies have shown that light while sleeping can affect hormones, mood, and ovulation in women.
4. Keep electronics away from your head. Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) disrupt our health and can trigger anxiety, restlessness, and prevent sound sleep. This includes alarm clocks (you can put this across the room or in the hallway), lamps, really anything plugged in to the wall. If you like to read at night, unplug the lamp before you settle to sleep. Some people even like to flip the circuit breaker.
5. Remove TVs, computers, stereos, and other unnecessary gadgetry from your bedroom. Studies have shown that once you turn off the TV it continues to radiate for 8 hrs. Not so good if you’re trying to rest and repair.
6. If you suffer from insomnia, try eliminating caffeine. Even a small cup of coffee at 8am could affect someone who is extra sensitive and prone to insomnia.
7. Create a nighttime ritual – 5- 30 minutes should do the trick. Here are some ideas to explore:A hot salt bath (or if your feet are hot, a cool foot bath with peppermint soap), slow yoga to meditative music, 10 deep belly breathes, or a foot rub. All of these bring your energy inward, calm the nervous system and prepare the body for sleep.